Separate Corners
by Rabble Rouser
Summary: Tucker has to decide what to make of T'Pol. A coda to "Broken Bow"


SEPARATE CORNERS By Rabble Rouser E-mail: rabblerouser02@aol.com Website: http://www.geocities.rabble_rouser_st/ DATE: October 2, 2001  
  
  
  
DISCLAIMER and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Paramount controls the known Star Trek Universe. I can't even control myself or this story would never have been written. It's been almost a year since I've posted anything. Guess I have Enterprise--and Djinn's "Reflections"--to thank as inspiration.  
  
(c) Rabble Rouser 2001 ***  
  
Damn the woman! This is the third time I've seen her in the mess, seated alone. Now why should that bother me? Probably the way she wants it Miss-touch-me-not. When I extended my hand the first time we met, she turned her back on me. She won't even touch food before it passes her lips why should I think she'd want company?   
  
Now there's a space beside Mayweather over there. I'd say that would be a much friendlier soul to sit next to for a meal. Travis won't sniff disdainfully at my BBQ. Hell, maybe that's why she's seated all alone there in the corner. All those carnivores chomping down must be unsettling. Hell, seeing Klaang eat before we set him back on QonoS was unsettling enough. Kinda gave me a new sympathy for what seemed disdain before because I have to admit I almost lost my lunch watching.  
  
Hoshi looks almost like she's gonna sit there. Then she stops, sees Travis wave her over, and sits with him. And somehow that stirs something that sits very uncomfortably. Back at high school when where you sat was a matter of social life or death. Sit with my best friend Tommy? And be counted one of the geeks? It's funny the things you regret, the small tests of character you don't even know are tests back then. There's something about the woman's posture that reminds me how Tommy used to sit. Like it didn't bother him you wouldn't sit with him. Just a little too straight, too controlled, rebuffing before he can be rebuffed. Remember how relieved you felt when you joined Starfleet? How you finally seemed to find your own people and left so much of that behind?  
  
You can't help but notice how a lot are treating her. Can she even tell? How can you give a Vulcan a cold shoulder so she notices? Thing is, if she really wanted to eat alone, she could do it in her quarters. She doesn't have to be surrounded by humans. That's the thing that's still eating at you though isn't it Trip me boy? Why is she still here? Oh there's the easy answer to that: the captain asked. I still can't understand why she would say yes. Why stay on a ship you consider a toy with people you consider unruly children?   
  
I still can't completely trust her even after all that happened. Just for a moment when we were modifying the sensors, I thought I saw a flash of respect. Maybe fear. The Vulcans boast they were flying spaceships since we were chipping at stone tools. Yet in the end their best is what? A century ahead of ours? We've accomplished in a century what took them a millennium. Maybe there's something to be said for the long view that a two-century lifetime gives. But something we impatient, mayfly humans have is a willingness to cast off the weight of tradition and greedily grasp at new ideas.   
  
Do the Vulcans in the end look at us as a sort of dangerously immature prodigy? Is it really that they're afraid we'll "revert to our baser instincts?" Or is their real fear that our power will soon outstrip our wisdom? Lord knows there is plenty of human history to say they're right. So in the end is she here to try to slow us down, to shape us, divert us? Make sure we don't ever pull up even or even outstrip Vulcan?  
  
The captain says if we're to pull this off we have to leave behind our prejudices and suspicions. That we can't go exploring "strange new worlds and civilizations" if we're not willing to try to understand the people who've been working at our side for nearly a century. Remember back at Rigel Ten? You were ready to run half-cocked cause what was therapy for that little boy looked more like torture. She was the one who told you to understand before you judge, before you act.   
  
Maybe that is why she stayed. Maybe she's begun to see enough value in us to help us to not trip over our own feet. Funny thing--each time you reached her, changed her mind, it wasn't logic that moved her. Both times it was an emotional argument really--an appeal to loyalty you thought alien to her. You were getting in those barbs for your own satisfaction if you're honest about it--not because you thought anything could move her. But she did modify those sensors, she didn't turn us back, she did pull the captain out of trouble.   
  
And face it--when you first extended that hand out to her it wasn't out of friendly feeling and you knew it. You were baiting her. You knew Vulcans don't shake hands and you wanted to make the point to yourself, the captain and her that she was a hypocrite. That for all the talk about crude humans and diplomatically sophisticated Vulcans that they couldn't even follow simple, harmless customs of their host and extend the slightest courtesy. There's hardly been a word or gesture you've made that hasn't had the objective of getting under her skin--from that extended hand to rubbing her ears with the gel just a little longer than was required. And she's returned the favor. She's--disturbed you and nagged at you just a little more than you feel comfortable thinking about.  
  
Well, it won't kill me to have some vegetarian chili now would it? She looks a little surprised, maybe a little relieved when you ask if she would mind some company. Her face and posture relaxed just a trifle. Truce? Well no, not completely. That would be to miss out on a lot of fun. But the captain's right. If we're gonna embrace new worlds, we gotta embrace new ideas. She's out of her compound. Maybe it's time to take a step outta mine.  
  
The End 


End file.
